Live On Forever: Curating a Post-Mortem Mythos
My endeavors into gospel composer Roxie Moore’s archive began at her keyboard, a keyboard I lived with for days on end as I tarried with the intersection of memories and materials made sacred through encounters with her friends and family - whose words animated the life of a loved one long past. Materials included liner notes stuffed in the pockets of mixed CDs honoring the work of people whose contributions were unknown in life, letters written to music publishing companies advocating on behalf of one’s unrecognized labor, and postcards from close friends to whom the world ascribed musical fame. What power do these materials hold when considered alongside the unknown (spiritual) lives of contributors to the twentieth-century soundscape? What do we make of the passing down of these materials through matrilineal lines in hopes that one day someone heeds the call of post-mortem mythology? This keynote presentation will consider the ways in which Roxie Moore’s auto-archival practices indicate equal intentionality in creating and cultivating her own post-mortem image. Her archive is the keyhole through which I peer into a complicated, multifaceted twentieth century music scene as well as the performative choices of a woman who may have deliberately kept herself at its margins.